Stars and Stripes reports that a group of House Democrats has proposed that troops dismissed under the now repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell” law should be able to apply for honorable discharge status if it had been initially denied to them, thus permitting them to receive veterans benefits. Continue reading
Health and Medicine
Planned Parenthood Gets The ACORN Treatment
Taking its inspiration from James O’Keefe’s infamous ACORN stunt, and anti-abortion group called Live Action videotaped actors as they asked Planned Parenthood staff at a New Jersey clinic for advice while disguised as a pimp and one of his prostitutes. Sure enough, just like in the incident that helped destroy ACORN, the eager-to-please Planned Parenthood staff member cooperated, advising the couple how to get abortions and other services for the “pimp’s” prostitutes, some of them described as illegal immigrants and girls as young as 14.
The episode raises several ethical issues: Continue reading
Judge Vinson’s Ruling on the Individual Mandate, Rejecting Utilitarianism
Judge Roger Vinson of Florida’s Northern District Court has struck down the much-debated individual mandate in the new health care reform law, and more striking yet, has ruled that the entire law fails to meet constitutional requirements as a result. Lawyers more skilled than I will be analyzing the opinion today and long afterward, but the opinion is also notable for its ethical approach. Continue reading
Pole-Dancing for Kids: Icky or Unethical?
The latest issue of “Pole Spin,” the “international pole dance and lifestyle magazine,” features “the world’s youngest pole dancer” and a proud family with four pole-dancing teenagers.
Is this wrong? Child porn? Bad parenting? What the heck is it when something with sexual connotations is used by children in a non-sexual way? Continue reading
Abortion Ethics: The Delusions of P.Z.Myers
Mere “Ethics Dunce”-dom doesn’t suffice for P.Z. Myers, gonzo biologist and professor who writes the intermittently enlightening, frequently infuriating blog, Pharayngula. Writing about the horrific case of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, an abortionist/quack/butcher whose method would make him a likely model for an episode of “Criminal Minds,” Myers wrote this, referring to the charges against him based on the fact that his version of “abortion” consisted, in at least seven cases, of inducing a live birth and murdering the baby afterwards, with a scissors: Continue reading
Unethical Quote of the Week AND Unethical Apology of the Month: Rep. Steve Cohen
First, the quote:
“I said Goebbels lied about the Jews, and that led to the Holocaust. Not in any way whatsoever was I comparing Republicans to Nazis. I was saying lies are wrong…I don’t know who got everybody’s panties in a wad over this statement.”
—–Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), in his initial dismissal of criticism over his rant on the House floor regarding Republican characterizations of the health care bill.
This quote is really remarkable, for it is hard to pack so many kinds of dishonesty into so few words.It’s hard to know where to begin. Continue reading
Ethics Dunce: Cancer Researcher Sook Shin
Sook Shin and her husband are respected cancer researchers at an Oklahoma University research lab, committing their lives to finding a cure for prostate cancer. The couple recently stopped at a Panera Bread restaurant for a quick meal, and returned to their car to find a window broken, and their Apple computer, carrying years of data—the product of thousands of hours and research dollars—including, they say, a possible cancer cure, gone. Tragically, they had not backed up the data. Continue reading
Unavoidable Ethics: Giffords Needs To Resign
Rep. Giffords doesn’t have to face this inevitable decision now or tomorrow or in the next few weeks. She will have to face it, however, and as soon as she is well enough to evaluate her situation realistically, she owes it to her district and the country to step down, and let someone take her place as Representative of the 8th District of Arizona. Continue reading
Speaker Boehner’s Sensitive/Cowardly Removal of Harmless/Violent Wording in Response to a Trumped-up/Genuine Problem
One of the characteristics of a true Ethics Train Wreck (or ETW for short) is that it eventually reaches the point where unethical and ethical responses to it are indistinguishable. The Tucson shooting ETW officially reached that point today, when Speaker of the House John Boehner apparently yielded to the complaint that referring to the health care reform law as “job killing” was inappropriate in light of Jared Loughner’s near-murder of Rep. Giffords along with killing or wounding 19 other victims.
In a post on his official blog, Boehner referred to the law as “job destroying” and “job crushing,” an apparent concession to critics like Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree, who argued that the House bill called the “Repeal the Job Killing Health Care Law Act” should be renamed something without “killing” in it, “for Gabby’s sake.” By doing so, the Speaker of the House gave credibility to an argument that… Continue reading
Tucson Aftermath: Don’t Let The Barn Door Close On Freedom, Please
In the wake of Jared Loughner’s attack, the “barn door fllacy” is in full operation as intensely, and foolishly as I’ve ever seen it. Everyone from social reformers to yellow-bellied Congress members are proposing changes and suggesting “dialogues” aimed at stopping Jared Loughner’s completely unpredictable conduct, which, they seem to forget, has already occurred. Almost always, when everyone rushes to lock the metaphorical barn door after the horse is gone, they make the barn and everything around it uglier, less useful, more expensive, and less respectful of basic human dignity and freedom: witness the TSA’s outrageous new pat-down procedures, designed to stop 2009’s exploding underpants terrorist, who was unsuccessful. Continue reading
